Research News

Engineers receive $1 million for implantable system to detect lung cancer

By CORY NEALON

“You can think of the sensor as a tiny tattoo — it won’t move — that will be placed on a blood vessel just under your skin near your wrist.”

Wayne Bacon, president and CEO

Garwood Medical Devices

Future medical diagnostic tools may get under your skin —
literally.

An interdisciplinary team of UB engineers, working with Intel
Corp. and Garwood Medical Devices, has received a $1
million National Science Foundation grant to develop technology
that combines implantable sensors, wearable devices and software to
better identify and monitor serious illnesses such as lung
cancer.

The project aims to greatly increase the capabilities of
wearable devices, which are mostly used to check heart rate,
calories burned and other relatively simple measurements.

“Existing wearables are only able to measure a few
parameters,” says Josep Jornet, UB assistant professor of
electrical engineering and the grant’s principal
investigator. “We are developing an integrated system that
will provide a faster and more accurate way to diagnose and monitor
diseases than conventional technologies by leveraging the
state-of-the-art in nanobiophotonics and wireless
communications.”

To create the system, Jornet assembled a team of UB faculty
members who study, among other things, electrical engineering,
biomedical engineering, orthopedics, and chemical and biological
engineering.

In addition to Intel and Buffalo-based Garwood Medical Devices,
researchers from Roswell Park Cancer Institute are serving as
consultants.

The idea of implanting a chip into one’s skin may not be
for everyone; however, for people who have an increased likelihood
of developing a particular disease — for example, due to
family history or their surrounding environment — a faster
and more accurate way to spot that disease could be a lifesaver,
Jornet says.

The team is developing an implantable sensor made mostly of gold
that is 10 micrometers squared. The average human hair is 100
micrometers wide.

“You can think of the sensor as a tiny tattoo — it
won’t move — that will be placed on a blood vessel just
under your skin near your wrist,” says Wayne Bacon, president
and CEO of Garwood Medical Devices.

The sensor, which will be designed to detect lung cancer
biomarkers in blood, will only collect data when triggered by light
emitted by a network of nanophotonic devices integrated in a smart
wristband the team is also developing. The wristband will then
collect from the sensor data that it will send via Bluetooth to a
smartphone or computer.

To make this happen, software algorithms that ensure the
accuracy and safety of the system are needed. The software also
must secure confidential medical information as it is transmitted
wirelessly.

The project, which began Sept. 1, will have implications beyond
lung cancer detection. Theoretically, the system could be altered
to detect other diseases with biomarkers found in blood. It also
could help monitor illnesses, providing doctors with more accurate
and robust data on the progression of diseases. For patients, it
could reduce the need to travel to and from the doctor’s
office or clinic.

The team is planning a series of tests to study how the sensor
works in blood samples of lung cancer patients. Within three years,
it plans to test the entire system in cadavers.

In addition to Jornet, the following UB faculty members are
working on the project: Mark Ehrensberger, assistant professor of
biomedical engineering and director of UB’s Kenneth A.
Krackow MD Orthopaedic Research Laboratory; Edward P.
Furlani, professor of chemical and biological engineering, and
electrical engineering; Qiaoqiang Gan, associate professor of
electrical engineering; Zhi Sun, assistant professor of electrical
engineering; and Yun Wu, assistant professor of biomedical
engineering. Former UB faculty member Liang Feng, now a University
of Pennsylvania faculty member, is also on the team.

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